The field of use extends to rail vehicle engineering. Rail vehicles that are equipped with pantographs for drawing electrical current require auxiliary energy to move the pantograph, by way of an actuating drive, between a retracted position and a deployed position. As actuating drives of the type of interest here, use is made of pneumatic actuators, for example pressure medium cylinders, which must be supplied with auxiliary energy, i.e., compressed air.
According to the generally known prior art, for the auxiliary-air supply, a separate auxiliary-air compressor is used which, in the context of an auxiliary-air supply system for providing the pneumatic energy for the actuating drive of a pantograph and the like, is supplied with electrical energy by the vehicle battery of the rail vehicle. The electrical energy of the vehicle battery is sufficient to drive the auxiliary air compressor, which is of relatively small dimensions, by way of an electric motor such that an adequate amount of compressed air can be produced for auxiliary-air supply purposes.
However, an auxiliary-air supply system of the type entails an extremely high level of outlay in terms of apparatus and maintenance despite a low level of usage in the normally weekly cycle.
Disclosed embodiments provide a compressed-air supply device having compressed-air generating means for the additional auxiliary-air supply, which compressed-air supply device is a simple technical construction and low maintenance outlay.